 I'm so glad you're joining us the day after Resurrection Sunday. I hope you had a wonderful time with your loved ones going to church, or if you were like Tom, maybe you stayed home. Ah, yeah, she's telling on me. I'm so glad you're joining us for home today. Amanda's off today. Sorry, but I think it's, I think it was wonderful how you got to such a time, you and Gene. You know, there's some people that only go on church at Christmas. We're like the opposite. We skip on church at Christmas a lot. Family's coming over, got a lot of preparations to do, but we went on Friday night, our Friday night church. So there you go. It counts. You were worshiping at home. It's all good stuff. That's right. That's right. Well, we're so glad you're with us. We have a great guest coming up. Laura Richie is going to be with us, and she's going to tell us about, you know, we've just heard this great story about Jesus and his resurrection, victory over death hell on the grave. But you know what we've told our kids that too. But she's written something Laura has called the Go and Tell Storybook. There's 30 Bible stories about showing how we should share about Jesus. And I love this so much because it's about how we can train our children to go and tell others about Jesus. I love that. I think a lot of books miss it. It spends a lot of time in the Book of Acts, but it's all about telling others the great story. And I know the Book of Acts. Isn't that one of your favorite books in the Bible? Oh, it's one of my favorites. I love it because it's where we live. It's where we're supposed to live as Christians in this empowerment of the Holy Spirit, sharing the good news, and that's our commission. That's what we're called to do. I want to ask you, Tom, because I know you and Jeanne have grandchildren, so have you had opportunities to share about Jesus with them? Well, we certainly do. We, you know, want to respect the parents, but we don't have any trouble talking about the Lord with them, you know? And, you know, they're all, you know, at different areas, but we make sure they know who Christmas is about and things like that. That's awesome. Because I know it's like Tom and Jeanne's heart is like they love their children and their grandchildren, and we hope grandparents out there, we just want to say thank you for all the love, all the baskets that you bring. It reminds me this time of year of my mom. Like, she always made sure that I understood it wasn't about the Easter Bunny, it wasn't about the eggs, but I always had a chocolate cross. I didn't get a chocolate cross this year, mom, but it's all good. You know what? I mean, since the kids actually went to the in-laws, so they weren't there, so that just meant more jelly beans for me. More jelly beans for Tom. It's all good. Well, we're going to have a little dive into something fun that we like to do here, and I hope you play along. It's called Stump the Host. Okay, these are all resurrection themes, so play along with us here. Here's the first question. And we haven't heard these, so you've got to answer just like us. Who was the first person to see Jesus's empty tomb? Tom, this is all you. I'm drawing it completely blank. I was going to say Mary. It's like, I knew it's one of the women, right? It's one of the women. We've got to say Mary. Mary. Mary is good. Oh, yeah. Yeah, all right, all right. Mary Magdalene, so that's from John 20. See, now we say Mary, there's like seven people. I know. Here's question number two. When Jesus first appeared unto his disciples, which disciple was not among them? You think I might know this one? Thomas. Thomas wasn't among them. Okay, we're going to go with Thomas. Your namesake. Thomas. That's from John. He was just messing up all over the place. Sounds familiar. Well, yeah. You know, he said that I won't believe until I put my finger into his wounds. Yeah. So anyway, good old Thomas. Stoutin' all the time. Jesus foretold of his resurrection by using the example of what prophet? Wait a minute. Jonah. Let's go with Jonah. Let's go with Jonah. For three. You were on it today. You get all the sparkly glitter, all the glitter. Can we have more glitter? Because it's resurrection. Larry. Oh my God. Call for glitter. We called for glitter. Does that work? Wait a second. Let me try that. Can I have glitter? Could you give me glitter? See, it doesn't work. Oh my God. We all would like that. That's like one of our favorites. Yeah, I know. Now we can call for it. We're making Larry crazy up there. Well, hey, it's important for us to share this good news. It is. It is joyous news. It is a good news of Jesus and his resurrection. It's especially important that we share about Jesus with our children and our guest today, Laura Richie, is a best selling children's author and in her newest release, the Go and Tell Storybook, she shares 30 Bible stories that will inspire children and their families to go and tell the story of Jesus. Laura, welcome to Hope Today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here with you guys. So again, I do love this theme. I know you've written other books, but this one what what prompted you to write about the Book of Acts? Yeah, so this third book kind of picks up where the second book in the series the Easter storybook left off and That book ended with Jesus ascending to the Father and I feel like as a kid I kind of felt like that was the end of the story a little bit It was a happy ending and you know, then I just I didn't really realize that you know His his resurrection and his ascension didn't mean that he was done With doing all that he was doing an axe shows us that God's spirit came and empowered Jesus's friends to Continue all of the good things that Jesus was doing to continue the rescue And so that's what that's really my goal with this book is to show how you know God's spirit came and continued the rescue and I also like kids to understand that We too are a part of this story and we too get to share this good news that Jesus is our rescuer Who's making all things good and new again? Well, the book is fantastic. I mean, it's beautifully done and As I was looking at it it it seems to me that it could either be read by parents to their children or us Somewhat older kids could read it themselves and learn a lot I mean, there's a lot of you didn't shy away didn't you didn't like for lack of better term dumb it down or make it too Too young. There's a lot of good meat in there Yes, yeah, I feel like most families are gonna read it together I really wrote it so that four to eight year olds could understand it that's kind of the age of my kids and I really wanted to use you know, symptom structure and vocabulary that that age can understand but I know families With even younger kids and sometimes with teenagers, you know like to read it all together But you're totally right that the older child could read it just to themselves or to the younger siblings as well Yeah, and you know tell me about Your illustrator there. They're just amazing. In fact, we have a few shots of the the book You know that are just just fantastic. There's one of You know, I love I mean look how beautiful they are. There's one of Peter I've never seen a representation of that one there where Peter's having the vision of the animals being led down You know unclean animals led down on a sheet the pigs kind of looking over the sheet there a little bit But and you know Peter says I won't eat eat that Lord, but again the Lord saying don't declare unclean what I've called clean and I mean that's a Just tell us about the illustrations and how they came about Sure. Yeah, Ian Dale is the illustrator and he does an amazing job as you can see All of the illustrations are very detailed and they're colorful and they're realistic And they're so good at pulling kids into the story, especially this age group All of his characters are unique. They all have very realistic facial expressions And I love that they all look like they're from their country of origin. He's very Very careful to show Jewish people looking like they're Jewish Characters that are from Africa look like they're from Africa. So I love that aspect. He makes sure that there's a lot of just Diversity and that it's historically accurate as well Laura love how you're displaying the diversity. It's just so beautiful seeing the illustrations in those pictures We just want to ask, you know, is there a favorite story that you love sharing with your children? Yes, my son the first time we read The story about the angel getting Peter out of prison, you know that the his friends were so scared for him and They're praying and they're praying and there was no way that he could escape And then an angel comes in the middle of the night and you know Peter's chain in between two soldiers and I love that illustration Within my son my five-year-old when we were reading that the first time and You know the door opens for Peter just the angel just opens it And he just walks through but he doesn't really know what's going on and then he makes it to Mary's house and he's knocking on the door and Nobody's coming and then finally Rhoda comes And she recognizes his voice, but she's still excited that she forgets to let him in And then she runs back and nobody believes her and my son was just cracking up at that story He loved that story and we had to read it. I think three times in a row that first time And so that was his favorite for sure That's a great story. I love the when kids find the little bits of humor here and there In the scriptures. Let me ask you you grew up as a missionary kid. Okay, so your parents were out there Fulfilling the Great Commission. Tell us about your heart in writing about our commission in the book of Acts You know to go into all the world and preach the gospel and How how did you come to that and and what has been the result of you? Just sharing these stories with your children and with others Yeah, so I even before becoming a missionary kid. I was always in church Pretty sure it was three times every week. We were in church. And so I knew a lot of the Bible I knew a lot of the stories and I thought That I knew who God was But you know, I really didn't It wasn't until my mid-20s that I kind of realized that I saw the Bible as just a book that had a lot of rules and If I was honest, I saw God as a task master who expected me to follow all of these rules And I tried so hard to follow all of them and to make him happy I wanted to go to heaven and I didn't want him to be mad at me But you know, all of those years of striving Finally in my mid-20s when I had two little babies of my own. I just reached the point of Kind of realizing that I couldn't keep doing this anymore I couldn't keep trying to do all the right things and not do all the bad things I was just too tired and you know, I knew that all the rules boiled down to loving God and loving others And when I had my two little babies I realized that I couldn't even love them perfectly much less my neighbor and you know when it came down to it I didn't actually love God. I was scared of him So I remember one evening very distinctly and I just went into my living room And I just broke down into tears and I just decided I can't do this anymore and I told God I'm not I'm not gonna keep trying to do this and it was terrifying It it felt like stepping off of a cliff blindfolded But instead of sensing God's anger at me, I felt peace for probably the first time and I Saw Jesus for who he was for the first time and he knew that I could not follow all of those rules And he wasn't expecting me to that's why he came and so I discovered Jesus as being my rescuer and That is really the beginning of my journey of writing because I didn't want my children to grow up in church like I did and Completely miss out on knowing who God really is and seeing his beauty and his grace and seeing him as the rescuer And so that's what all of the books are about It's just me trying to help my kids and any other child who reads this, you know read these books Realize how good God is and how he loves us and how he came to rescue us Laura just love what you shared with your story so much about understanding Jesus as our rescuer He's our redeemer. He's our deliverer and you know right now in our culture and our time There are so many parents or so many grandparents that are so concerned about the state of our children growing up in this world So what would you say and what any advice would you give in wisdom to those parents and those grandparents that have young ones to Make sure that they know that children know that Jesus is our rescuer. What things can they implement today in their home? I Think you know one of the biggest things is Trying to make sure that Isn't it always about following the rules? Because a lot of that was my personality I tend to be a perfectionist But I know that that is the message that a lot of kids get and so trying to emphasize that Yes, there are rules and they are there to keep us safe But nobody's gonna be able to follow them perfectly, you know, that's why Jesus came So that's a big thing and then I think just being consistent and having conversations with your kids and making that just a natural part of your life the other two books and the series are the Advent story book and the Easter story book and those are Designed to be read every advent You know before Christmas and then the 40 days before Easter the season of Lent And so if you are picking up books like these books or other ones It makes it a lot easier for that those conversations and those stories just to be a part of your life as a family and Just something that you naturally talk about I also have questions at the end of each story and that's a really good kind of jumping point for You know having these conversations that really matter and just making it more natural and not awkward and in light of that at the end of every Every chapter you have a question or a couple of questions In fact like here's one It says what good things did God do through Paul and Barnabas? So that's just one of them, but there's one in every story So tell me about that why you put that there and how's that really helped the parents to share with their children? Yeah, I feel like the questions are a big part of what has made these books So meaningful for a lot of families because you know the each story is just one page long It only takes three to five minutes to read it. So it's easy to fit in even for your younger kids Just one quick daily story This book the go and tell storybook isn't associated with the holiday But it has 30 stories so you can pick just any month of the year that works best for you And have just a quick, you know daily Bible reading time just a family time But then the question at the end helps you engage your kids and it really helps pull out their thoughts And it helps you understand, you know, what their perspective is and what they learned and it's just fun to have You know some of the conversations that you can with those questions You know, I really love you sharing your story I grew up in the church and I can remember those same kind of feelings of like Is God accepting me as a teenager? You know am I doing what I'm I know is that is that and it's hard to serve? A God like that when you see that taskmaster side of God because the love isn't there What has God taught you through being a parent yourself that has illuminated what he is as a father? Yes Really, you know, I feel like whenever I became a mom That's when I reached the end of my rope and Realizing that these little babies need me and I can't do enough for them And I'm going to make mistakes and just that whole Struggling with that was really, you know, what prompted me to finally realize who God is But yeah, the just the love that I have for my kids That's all God sees me and in a such bigger way, you know in each one of us And I never understood that before Yeah, that thank you for just Sharing and being willing to be vulnerable. I know that that's that's the thing, isn't it? That's the thing when when you realize that little one just wants to sit on your lap And you don't have to you don't they don't have to perform anything for you and they don't have to Do anything to receive your love. They just have to be there. So if you think you can make it through could you pray for our Audience and someone watching that maybe have never they've never seen God that way all they've known is maybe religion all They've if they've known even that and all they've known is is just that that harshness or that strictness and Could you just pray for someone watching? Well, I thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and thank you for Loving us. I ask that anyone Who has doubted? doubted who you are or Not felt that love like me for so many years I ask that you would just open their eyes to see who you are and that they would see You and all of your beauty and your glory and your love and that you would just surround them with your arms and that they would know that you are such a good father and you want them to come close to you and Father, thank you that we all have the hope that you are going to make all things good and new and death will be no more and Suffering and pain will be no more and you are going to do that and please just help us to trust you and to rest in That and keep walking forward even when it's difficult. Thank you Yes, that's such a powerful moment. Thank you Laura so much for being with us today The book is called the go and tell story book 30 Bible stories showing why we should share about Jesus by Laura Richie Laura again. Thank you so much. Thank you for writing the book and thank you for sharing your heart today Thank you so much for having me Well, it's a powerful thing and when we get a right view of God We begin to see our lives in the right way as well So we're gonna take a quick break but stay with us. We're gonna have a scripture We're gonna talk about this a little bit more and just have a time of ministry for you Cornerstone television has believed in the power prayer sits in Synception 44 years ago We invest heavily in our prayer line to provide you with 24 seven personal prayer knowing it brings breakthrough healing and wisdom last year alone We received over 65,000 prayer calls and if you had partnered with us Thank you so very much and when you give this month I am so excited to share with you my new book praying on another level It's a 30-day journal to take your prayer life to a new dimension in God You see prayer is how we separate good ideas from God ideas It's how we unlock the door to revelation and it's where we get our strength to build up our Spirit man to hear from God throughout our day all that and so much more So call us now at 888-665-4483 or give at ctvn.org forward slash donate to request your copy it is time to take your prayer life to another level Welcome back to a hope today. We just concluded a great conversation with Laura and and just an incredible amount of heartfelt truth that she was sharing with us and this scripture goes right along with that it's third John chapter 1 verse 4 it says this I Could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth Sidney John is talking about his spiritual children here. I know this feeling though from a parent standpoint Mostly that's where it hits me most is What what could be greater? What could be more important than my children the ones that were around me all the time the following the truth Following after the truth Andrew just posted something about walking his bike on Saturday You got a flat tire and he's walking his bike past this chapel and he got to hear the singing the celebration of Easter and and it just it blessed him he said it was worth the flat tire, you know So biker so do not like to get a flat tire So I like that so much and I just thinking about like when we just wrapping up our conversation with Laura and thinking about like I could have no greater joy than to hear my that my children are following the truth It's the truth of his love and how often how we misinterpreted that truth or we misconstrued it Or we feel like we're so we can be so wrapped up in religion just reminds me of when we're celebrating Resurrection Sunday Bishop clay at Petrona National Ministry shared this like really powerful word about how it is so important for us to Recognize and to understand how much God loves us and he actually did his sermon was in the Old Testament with Hosea and Gomorrah and that whole situation but how Gomorrah is a picture of us that we go after so many different lovers But Hosea that God called Hosea to go back and love his wife again and no matter how far we stray away No matter how many mistakes we made how many times we've dropped it and we've messed up because we've all have fallen short We've all had these moments isn't it amazing that God simply wants us to know that through his son, Yeshua That through the power of the Holy Spirit for us to understand to experience that love And there's something when you experience the love of God when you encounter the love of God It just changes you and your eyes begin to like brighten and you see life through such a different lens Tom What does that speak to you? Well, so much of this speaks to the idea of relationship You know we are called religious people say well you're religious, you know And I think to myself that's about as far from what I think I have with God as I can get Because religion is about the rules and it's about doing the things that you think will earn you the right place with God But that relation could you would you say? I'm religious towards my kids. No, we're not really I'm not religious I my kid when they were little if they fell down skinned their knee I would pick them up. I would rescue them I would pull them out of a Difficult situation and pull them to myself and that's what God has done for me and you It's not about keeping the rules. Yes, there are rules and there are Commands in the Bible and yes, they're good and right and perfect and we should keep them But we cannot be perfect and we cannot Ever be good enough the Bible is so clear that we cannot ever be good enough to earn our way to God Thankfully my kids didn't have to earn their way into my heart. They were just there and We don't have to earn our way to God. All we have to do is respond to him. That's all just respond to him Peter when he was drowning. He said Lord save me and he reached out his hand and Jesus reached down and grab it Peter doesn't reach out his hand then he doesn't get saved So that's the key here is God loves you so much and has such an incredible Passion for relationship for you. All you need to do is reach up And I love that God has hands You know that he pulls us out of that situation and pulls us out whatever going through and you know The most beautiful thing is when you receive Christ like one scripture That's always said in me is that like, you know, we have that same Resurrection power in us that when Jesus died and he rose again and we're celebrating that we're walking this new life with Christ We were empowered by the Holy Spirit that that same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead Guess what? That's in me and that's in you So grab hold of that today no matter what the situation looks like no matter if it's a relationship or your children or your marriage You're a family of their condition the world. We know that there's such great power Resurrection power that God he can breathe new life on dead things again. He doesn't make it the old way He makes it originally the way he wanted and intended it So today if that's you maybe you need a little pick me up Maybe you're feeling a little down Maybe things went a little south or whatever may be going walking in your world Give us a call at our prayer line at 888-665-4483. We are here with you We want to pray with you and let you know that you are not alone But God is reaching out his hand in that pit in that place and he's lifting you up because he loves you You know, I just had a thought while you were talking is that maybe you're doing great But you've kind of got God is this little thing on Sundays or this little religious thing or once in a while Maybe Easter you go to church maybe Christmas, but it's it's kind of like he's a part of your life God wants so much more than that with you and he's got so much more wonderful things for you Look, I understand we all have different places. We are with God But man God wants to bring all the barriers down all that and bring you to himself in a greater way than you've ever known It's much more than church. It's much more than prayer even it's a relationship that is close and Sydney, it's a whole other thing So as we're about to close and we're ending out our program and as you're starting your day Why don't you take five ten twenty thirty minutes? Maybe your whole lunch break an hour and spend some time With the Heavenly Father today sit at his feet listen to him and let him lavish his love upon you because he loves you With an everlasting love and that's why he sent his only son Jesus to rescue you to redeem you to pull you out because he Is a great purpose and a plan for you today, and that's the greatest hope that we have have a great day We love you on tomorrow's hope today Discover one TV stars journey of searching for the truth and finding freedom Author and reality TV actress Ginger Duggar Volow recounts how she began to question the unhealthy Ideology of her youth and how she learned to embrace true freedom in Christ. Don't miss tomorrow's hope today Cornerstone television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible